August 21st, 2008 by Sarah

Reihan Salam at The Atlantic writes that “the tragedy of Musharraf is that he had a rare opportunity to remake Pakistan as a stable, prosperous, Muslim democracy at peace with its neighbors, and he squandered it.” Salam reviews Musharraf’s rise and fall from power, and notes that the future of Pakistan does not look good as Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif “are both notorious thieves, scarcely better than Musharraf at his worst.”

Husain Haqqani, the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., argues in the Wall Street Journal that Musharraf’s resignation is in America’s best interests because it “is an opportunity to jump-start a much more durable and stable relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan as nations sharing democratic values.” 

Indian Ambassador M. K. Bhadrakumar in the Asia Times offers a more bleak perspective. “The same old game continues - a surrogate regime in Islamabad headed by people who are hopelessly compromised to Washington at the personal and political level.”  He levels charges at the U.S. as well, stating that “American diplomacy has learned that Washington doesn’t really need a military dictatorship to influence a South Asian country’s policies or power. There is a third way - corrupt the elites. It doesn’t cost that much in the South Asian milieu - even with a weak dollar. In fact, democratically elected governments can be the US’s ideal interlocutors. Then, there is always the mesmerizing ‘civil society’ (which has nothing to do with the real India or Pakistan), which is at the beck and call of US diplomacy.”

Posted in Democracy Promotion, Pakistan, US foreign policy |